Windows 7 Momentum: 7 Copies Sold Every Second

Seven months into the Windows 7 life cycle, and Microsoft is once again banging the drum for it's popular new OS. The announcements below follow an appearance by corporate VP and CFO Tami Reller at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch US Technology Conference. She noted, among other things:

Microsoft has sold over 100 million Windows 7 licenses in its the first 6 months on the market. Microsoft says that this makes Windows 7 the fastest selling operating system in history. Note, however, that this is not new information, and no update on Windows 7 sales after seven months was provided. That said, in a very Apple-esque move, Microsoft adds that this figure means that 7 copies of Windows 7 were sold every second in its first six months on the market. (So, averaging the 100 million number over 6 months, Windows 7 thus outsold the iPad by over 15-to-1 in comparable release time periods. Just to put the "game changer" in perspective.)

According to Net Applications, over 12 percent of PCs worldwide are running Windows 7. That's over 3 times the market share of Mac OS X for those of you keeping score at home. And while I'm not sure how such things are measured, Net Applications a LifeHacker study from March noted that "people are very happy with Windows 7." Customer satisfaction for Windows 7 is at 94 percent.

According to Microsoft, businesses are starting to get moving on their Windows 7 deployment plans. This has resulted in a 14 percent increase in sales for business PCs. It's not clear what the time period for this increase is, or where the data comes from. I do know from my own discussions with PC makers and major Microsoft customers that businesses, in general, are far more enthusiastic about Windows 7 than they were about Vista and appear to be actively preparing deployments. However, these companies move slowly even when they are moving. This is space to watch.

According to Reller:

"40 percent of enterprises are in either evaluation or pilot of Windows 7. And if you add in all levels of evaluation going on, you get up to about three-quarters of enterprise customers that are active with Windows 7."

According to Forrester, Windows 7 will become the new standard for most commercial (business) PCs within 12 months.

Some other interesting data from Reller:

"There are about 400 million PCs in businesses out there, [out of] about a billion PCs globally across all segments, 400 million in businesses, and the average age of those PCs is four-and-a-half years old, and 85 percent of those PCs are running XP."

"We see the slate category as a real extension and a growth opportunity for the PC market, the device market broadly, and it's in its early stages. It has a lot of similarities to where the netbook category was early on, which is some specialized use initially, and then more mainstream use over time. And we do think that we have a real opportunity in particular because of the work that we've done to date, and in particular with Windows 7 on touch to really create some compelling slate experiences in close concert with our OEMs. Today, slates are predominantly being used for consumption, and we think that with the power of Windows 7 not only can we think about genuine full consumption of the Web, but also creating content, as well as productivity."

"[At Computex this week,] we talked about two offerings for slates. We talked about Windows 7 Home Premium, which brings all of the capabilities of Windows 7, including touch, including support for media consumption, productivity, everything you'd want to do on a Windows 7 Premium slate experience. And then we also talked about Windows Embedded Compact, and that is another offering that we have for OEMs, and in particular that can be ARM-based. There are two offerings for OEMs. And we did see a number of announcements from OEMs at Computex around those."

Discuss this Article 7

Windows 7 is great, and will become the new XP, let's just hope that we won't have to wait another 5 years for Windows 8. I am very interested in Windows Embedded's ARM performance on a tablet, that would be a great compromise between the mobile OS's and desktop OS's currently offered today, especially since ARM kicks the crap out of Atom.

"Windows 7 thus outsold the iPad by over 15-to-1 in comparable release time periods. Just to put the "game changer" in perspective.)"

Paul stop comparing software sales to hardware sales, it just isn't fair, why not compare iPhone OS sales to Windows 7? Windows 7 will still win, and you'll be intellectually honest for a change.

"That's over 3 times the market share of Mac OS X for those of you keeping score at home"

So what? Does market share equal the best product? One word, Zune.

Why is Bank of America sponsoring a tech conference? When they owe the taxpayers of this country ALOT of money and an apology.

Without a doubt, Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft has produced since XP SP2. It surpassed all of Mac OS X installations in December of last year. But you're a bit generous when you say it now has more than 3 times the OS X share. My tally of Net Applications numbers has Mac OS X at 5.26%. Are you perhaps only counting Leopard and Snow Leopard?

The interesting thing in the Reller comments is the acknowledgment of the slate/tablet category becoming a category of future growth. Windows 7 is at a disadvantage here, both in terms of hardware and software. Some are critical of the touch interface simply being bolted on to the mouse/keyboard interface. I think the ribbon interface is a good example of this. So far, Intel has not been able to come up with an x86 chip that gets the battery life of the ARM chips. The power threshold seems to be the ability to play HD video, and the ARM platform is capable of that.

The real slippery slope will be when we decide how to count these new slates. Are they PC's or not? At D8 this week, Steve Ballmer said the iPad is just a PC with another form factor. PC purists think of the iPad as just a toy. The iPad is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to slates. At Computex this week, a slew of tablets were shown. Many of those will make it to market soon. They won't disrupt the corporate PC replacement cycle, but they will influence future buying trends.

"Microsoft has sold over 100 million Windows 7 licenses in its the first 6 months on the market. Microsoft says that this makes Windows 7 the fastest selling operating system in history"

So, unless it is a total flop, Vista perhaps, the latest release of Windows will ALWAYS be the fastest selling in absolute numbers because the number of PCs has gone up since the previous release. It's a meaningless claim. This year, Chinese New Year was celebrated by more Chinese than EVER BEFORE. So?

"(So, averaging the 100 million number over 6 months, Windows 7 thus outsold the iPad by over 15-to-1 in comparable release time periods. Just to put the "game changer" in perspective.)"

Since it is a upgrade product in a mature category, is this supposed to be profound? Most are probably replacements for XP or Vista, so this is roughly like next model iPod in terms of significance.

WIndows remains a cash cow, no doubt, but this is weak sauce. Microsoft doesn't have much to shout about these days if this is the best they've got.

However here is little more "perspective". According to Gartner, vendors sold around 11 personal computers a second in the same time period.

The simple fact is that any new PC OS from Microsoft is going to become "the fastest selling operating system in history". Even Vista was!

Windows 7 sales rate benefits from: Being better than Vista. The many millions who didn't upgrade to Vista (including businesses). The continued increase in computer sales. And a bounce back in PC sales after slower growth in 2009.

It would be 'news' if Windows 7 was not the fastest selling OS!

"According to Net Applications, over 12 percent of PCs worldwide are running Windows 7" I think a little "perspective" is required here too.

According to Net Applications, 69% of PC users are still running XP. An operating system that was launched nearly nine years ago.

According to Net Applications, despite the rise of Windows 7, the total Windows 'slice of the pie' continues to decrease. Losing 1% every 6 or 7 months.

Your 'perspective' on iPad sales doesn't really deserve a comment although I suspect you will get some! You know your audience.